


Plans of Good Intent

by SunnyD_lite



Category: Angel The Series
Genre: Community: tamingthemuse, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-01-16
Updated: 2011-01-16
Packaged: 2017-10-14 19:57:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 520
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/152888
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SunnyD_lite/pseuds/SunnyD_lite
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Set: Sn 3 Sleep Tight<br/>Prompt: TtM 234 Mea Culpa<br/>A/N: Getting back in the saddle again. For fun, not profit. With a prompt like Mea Culpa, how could I not choose Wesley?</p>
    </blockquote>





	Plans of Good Intent

**Author's Note:**

> Set: Sn 3 Sleep Tight  
> Prompt: TtM 234 Mea Culpa  
> A/N: Getting back in the saddle again. For fun, not profit. With a prompt like Mea Culpa, how could I not choose Wesley?

He can see leaves fluttering in the street light above his head. There is a sharp-sided pebble biting into a tense spot to the left of his spine. His neck itches. These are things he catalogues because he has been trained to notice his surroundings. Wesley chokes back a laugh. None of his co-workers think he observes anything. What does register most strongly is that his arms are empty. The missing weight of the infant _Angel's son, the child of prophecy_ feels heavier than the squirming mass of flesh and hopes had ever felt.

He is sorry.

His arms, unasked, curl around a bundle not there. Did they take the bag? The bag had his blankie, and Connor wouldn't sleep without it. Despite spending more time with theory than the baby, Wesley knew that much. He has not rushed. There was a process and Wesley had followed all the protocols of the agency that had exiled him, abandoned him at his nadir. _Once a Watcher always a Watcher._ Procedures ignored if not scoffed at by the others. If only all he'd done was watch. They'd better have taken Connor's blankie.

He is so sorry.

Translation was his task, by training and inclination. Ferreting out meaning from an interwoven text of dialects written long before the City of Angels built its first shanty. Scrolls and fragments from when even the Council had been undreamed. He could hear the ring of his cell phone; close enough to deafen, far enough to be unreachable. He'd thought the translation unobtainable. He had studied the variables, all the variables but each tributary led back to only one conclusion. _The Father shall kill the Son._ There had to be other answers. He knew, everyone told him, that he was not infallible.

So very sorry.

The ground beneath him was growing softer. Softer like Angel had grown looking at his progeny. Stresses not seen until they were removed. He was no longer the good man Wesley knew, that Wesley had aligned himself with. This was a man who was better. So, with the memory of the doctor's visit imprinted on his mind, Wesley sought to verify what he'd found. He had to be wrong. Angel would never do what had been written. Wesley, as friend, as aide, as a Watcher, would not let that happen.

So very very sorry.

But he'd been right. Scholarly achievement aside, all Wesley could foresee was a broken man, a lost weapon against the dark, a shattered father staring at the blood on his hands. Not all fathers would care. Some killed slowly, the squeezing out of the spirit not the blood. Still a weakening, a route to death. Angel was not like his father. Wesley could hear two familiar voices, but he could not move from where he lay. Each breath was fought for. His arms twitched involuntarily around an empty burden. There were three signs. Each checked off the list. His mind ran still ran through prophecies and plans. Contingencies and costs. He would do everything to protect his friend.

Mea culpa.

It hadn't gone as planned.

Mea maxima culpa.


End file.
